Saturday, September 19, 2009

IndieWirePrecious takes the audience prize at Toronto. Could this season be another like the Slumdog last when everything was a foregone conclusion before the big night. If so, zzz and uh-oh. The buzz is so deafening now it might sadly become one of those movies where everyone's opinions are pre-formed and no one's can fully be trusted. Hate it when that happens (but I am totally dying to see the film. Very soon. very soon)Quiet Earth Concept art for Mute, the follow up to Duncan Jones MoonPop Culture Nerd wonders if you'll go to the Harry Potter theme park. My god, not me. I'll be so relieved in 2011 when it's all finally over. NEXT!

Cinema Styles has a fascinating take on Francis Ford Coppola's One From the Heart. I love reading modern takes on this movieNY Times Robert De Niro and Spike Lee are developing a Showtime series about NYC's Alphabet City in the 80s. That's the creatively fertile time / place that brought us Keith Haring, David Wojnarowicz (where are their biopics?) and Madonna among other artistic luminariesFirst Showing on Leaves of Grass starring Edward Norton. I've heard from two readers who wondered why there aren't more reviews of this on the web so maybe you're interested, too? I've become agnostic on Norton over the years but sure did think he was back in form for The Painted Veil

Finally, there's yet more updates and posters added to the Oscar Foreign Language Film pages over at the original site...

I've also done a little bit of restructuring and digging to see which countries have been most popular with voters over the past 20 years and which stars are "good luck charms" for their films. Bet you didn't know that Russia's Oleg Menshikov held the first place position if my calculations are correct. Two of the world's most beautiful women (Gong Li and Penélope Cruz) are just behind him as foreign film rabbit's feet. Click on the following link to see more. There's even links to program your own international film festival at home.

But back to 2009. Brazil (Salve General), Serbia (Here and There ...starring Cyndi Lauper!!!) and France (Un Prophète -- don't bet against that one) have announced. Israel, Spain and Mexico are about to. Canada will announce on Tuesday. Do you think they'll pick I Killed My Mother (see previous post)?*

I sure hope Oscar winners aren't pre-ordained this year. Where's the fun? Having 10 Best Picture nominees is supposed to make winners harder to predict.

Have you seen Bright Star? It's exquisite and should be a contender for a few awards. Abbie Cornish is mesmerizing and I think people will stop labeling her as just Ryan Philippe's girlfriend after seeing her in this.

Austria's "Ein Augenblick Freiheit" must have a Canadian distributor, since I saw a French-language trailer for it today at a cinema here in Montréal. (Incidentally, the film I saw was "La Fille du RER," a French film about an emotionally disturbed young woman who fakes an anti-Semitic attack on herself [even though she's not Jewish] which becomes a cause célèbre. The plot was fairly muddy, but it had Catherine Deneuve in it as the girl's mother, and I always like watching Deneuve; the actor playing the girl's boyfriend was also quietly cute.)

Also, I don't know that Bernard Émond's "La Donation" would be eligible for Canada's choice, since it's not scheduled to be released in Québec until November 6th, and AMPAS rules say that the film has to have been released in the home country by September 30th. (Of course, they could get around that by releasing it somewhere in Canada for a week in late September, which is what they did last year with Denys Arcand's "L'Âge des ténèbres.")

I would not be surprised if "J'ai tué ma mère" were the Canadian nominee, since it's got the momentum, but I personally think that "Polytechnique" was a better film, and more deserving of the nomination.

i 225% agree that Potter (so-so to occasionally fun) is superior to Twilight (mega dull and whiny). That doesn't mean I am crazy for wanting a break from the boy wizard after 8 years of pop culture dominance.

No official word yet from the Film Academy of the Philippines, but various web sources are reporting that Soxy Topacio's indie comedy Ded Na Si Lolo (literal translation: Grandfather is Dead) has been selected as the entry of the Philippines to the Best Foreign Language Film category of the 82nd Academy Awards.